[redambition]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nox

^ Organic does not mean anything these days. I don't give it any more credence than any other random large brand name. They are all the same, but there's the extra joy of paying more for a frou-frou, hoity-toity label, while smugly wheeling the grocery cart to the checkout line.

For example, you can buy silly things like organic cigarettes and chewing tobacco. You can buy organic "free range" meat, but if they are free range, who can verify that they haven't been eating the trash that motorists leave on the side of the road? I love how junk foods can claim to be organic, but yet they can still use "organic" high fructose corn syrup, mollaser, and tartrazine.

I'm not into the whole scare mongering thing. Which is why I don't jump onto Organic, low fat, non-fat, all-natural bandwagons. What I will use is my common sense. My common sense tells me, I can use things that nature provides for cheap, or very nearly free to get things done without the things the advertisers say you absolutely need. I can be totally old-world and use things straight out the kitchen the way our grandparents use to do, and save thousands of dollars every year (which I do). My sensibilities also tell me that the less trash I produce (that go along with buying products in containers and wrappings), the less likely I am to have to worry about encountering potentially harmful substances.

I don't know that we have it worse off then 50 years ago. About fifty years ago, women were using Lysol to clean their lady parts. Manufacturers put actual chloride bleach into skin creams, carpenters built homes with asbestos, people painted with leaded paint, watchmakers used radon to make clock faces glow, chemists were pipetting mercury by mouth, and doctors administered smelling salts to women suffering "hysterics", and surgeons used the carcinogenic chloroform to put people out... kinda.

In the grand scheme of things, people have weathered through all that, and we haven't fallen apart. But I think educated awareness is absolutely necessary, this is how companies felt compelled to offer safer alternatives in the first place.

I totally agree on the scare-mongering, however there is such a thing as organically grown tobacco, organic corn syrup etc. organic doesn't mean healthy (like those packages would lead you to believe) but rather it's meant to reflect certain growing and production practices in the making of the ingredients and the product. the mistake is that people see the word organic and assume it must be good for them.

everyone is free to make their own decisions on what they think is acceptable for their food and cosmetics/haircare etc - but I am a big advocate of advising anyone who wants to avoid certain ingredients to read the bottle/packet/details of a product before buying it. you can't trust the label saying natural or organic, but at the same time some common sense is also a great help.

(on top of the list you mentioned i'd like to add petroleum jelly. it's been used as a barrier cream and in medicine for a long time, yet now it's gaining a rep as a dangerous ingredient)